Governments and Culture: How Women Made Kerala Literate Author(s): Robin Jeffrey Reviewed work(s): Source: Pacific

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Governmentsand Culture: How Women Made Kerala Literate*

Robin Jeffrey

out lurchingnorthwards ofErnakulamearlyon a monsoonmorning soil and surgeddown in July1968.Heavy rain bubbled into theredlaterite werelet thesides of theroad like strongtea. The canvas window-curtains down to keep out therain, and theinside of the bus steamed.At the first the away,an old woman stop,I lifted curtainto letin someair. A fewmetres on dressedin white sat dryand comfortable the narrowverandahof her house. What startledme was what she was doing. She peered intently through thick spectacles,and propped expertlyagainst her crossed leg was-her morningnewspaper. I had been teachingin a high school in Punjab in northIndia for about a yearat thattime,and among 150boyswho weremypupils, onlyone wore even among men, was not somethingI spectacles. Newspaper-reading, having seen an old woman commonly saw, and I could not remember about what readinga newspaper.This was thebeginningofmyperplexity made Kerala literate.Though I could not have known it then, female literacyin Kerala in 1971 proved to be 54 percent;in Punjab, only 26 percent(Table 5). This essay triesto explain why Kerala is India's most literateregion. According to the census of 1981, 69 percentof all Kerala's people were the literate, thoughtheall-India ratewas a mere36 percent.Maharashtra, most literatestate afterKerala, had a rate of only 47 percent.' (For the problemof defining"literacy,"see the Note at theend of thisessay.) I have long agonized overany shortexplanation of what made Kerala or governments someWas it thepersistent policies of far-sighted literate. thingpeculiar to Kerala's culture?My bestpropositionwould be: governthe mentsand theirpolicies affected timingat which particulargroups of people in Kerala became literate;but culture2-and the most important
* The writer grateful a numberofpeople for on is to commenting thisessay,butespecially for to Rod Church of Brock University a painstakinglyconstructive reading of an earlier version. I Economic and Political Weekly, April 1981,p. 644. 11 2 This is to use "culture" in "its wide ethnographicsense": i.e., "that complex whole which includes knowledge,belief,art,morals, law, custom,and any othercapabilities and " of habitsacquired byman as a member society. See Edward B. Tylor,quoted in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, David L. Sills, ed., vol. III (New York: Macmillan and The Free Press, 1968),p. 527.

SINGLE IMAGE

for dramatized Kerala'sliteracy me. I was on a bus

447

Pacific Affairs aspects of old Kerala's culture were the attitudestowards women and about themselves-explains the eagernesswith which women's attitudes theyacquired literacy.
LIA ! |

A~~~~~~' . _.
soUTH

,MALA(KARNATAKV D':

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RMADRAS /-

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ARNALGAPLI .C oorKil CALIC

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?? Mdes NJLGIR WATERRWAY AKUjA/ DITRIVADU

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KERALA, pre-1947 Showing Britishadministrative Districts and the PrincelyStatesof Travancoreand Cochin

Kerala-the regionon India's southwestern coastwheretheMalayalam language is widelyspoken-was dividedunderthree different governments fromabout 1800 to 1949. (See Table 1 and Map.) Travanlcore and (Cochin were princelystates under theirown maharajas, overseenby a British "resident"or "political agent." Malabar was directly ruled bytheBritish. Its chief officialwas the "collector" or "deputy commissioner" whose superiorswerein Madras City,thecapital of thevast Madras Presidency. 448

How Women Made Kerala Literate

The factthata single linguisticregionwas dividedamong three administrations provides an opportunity to examine how a similar culture respondedtodifferent governments. Specifically, will allow us, I hope, to it in distinguishtherole of educational policy fromthatof cultural factors making Malayalis literate.
TABLE

MALABAR, COCHIN, AND TRAVIANCORE, c

1940

Malabar Population, 1941 Area (square miles) Percentageof: Lower-casteHindus Muslims Higher-caste Hindus Christians 3,929,000 5,800 48 30 20 2

Cochin 1,423,000 1,400 45 8 19 28

Travancore 6,070,000 7,700 40 7 21 32

Sources: Census of India, 1941,vol. xix, Cochin; vol. xxv, Travancore;vol. ii, Madras.

The first part of the essay examines what the threegovernments did, from the latterhalf of the nineteenthcenturyonwards, to make their do Those efforts wereoften subjectsliterate. substantial, alone they not yet explain Kerala's literacy:similar policies in otherparts of India did not The secondpartoftheessaytherefore producethesameresults. exploresthe with roleofKerala's culture, especiallytheplace ofwomenand thealacrity which theylearnedto read and write.
GOVERNMENTS AND THE TIMING OF EDUCATIONAL CHANGE

of The governments Travancore,Cochin, and Malabar did not "modernize"at thesame time.The Britishimposed a rudimentary bureaucracy but on Malabar earlyin thenineteenth century, itsscope was limited.From the 1860s, however,Travancore dramaticallyexpanded the taxing and of Cochin followedfrom late 1880s. the spendingactivities itsgovernment; In part,thetwoprincely wereseekingtogain renownforconducting states "progressive" administrations.They were responding to the increased interest thattheexpanding worldeconomyshowed in therichcash-crops on thatflourished a tropicalcoast. of Guided bythatmostremarkable nineteenth-century administrators, T. Madhava Rao (1828-91), in Travancoredetermined the1860s to promote primary education in Malayalam. It was "evident,"wroteMadhava Rao, "that theeducationofthemassesofthepeople mustbe conductedthrough the medium of the Vernacular language." Since Travancore "abounds with indigenous schools," it was the task of governmentto turn these
449

Pacific Affairs of oftensuperstitious, popular centres old-fashioned, learningto modern ends.3 with those of BritishIndia, which This policy contrastedstrikingly emphasized higher education in English. Rather,Travancore aimed to create a regulated systemof vernacular,primaryeducation-well-concentralized structed buildings, regular hours, curricula, travelling inspectors, standardexaminations,and, perhaps mostimportant all, printedtextof books. Practical reasons-notably the vigor of the old village schoolsMadhava Rao's preference. helped to determine They also highlightthe importance of the cultural base on which Kerala's impressiveliteracy statistics laterrose. In a pioneering articlein 1968, Kathleen Gough argued thatin preBritishtimesMalayalis werestrikingly literate: percentof men and 25 50 percentof women.4Under Britishrule, local schools withered away, and declinedsteeply a result.The censusesof the 1870sfoundonly5 as literacy or 6 percentof Malayalis literate. There are good reasons forpresuming that literacywas more widespread in Kerala than elsewhere in India in the eighteenthcentury. Throughout theworld,coastal tradingareas tend to have higherratesof literacy.5 Moreover,as Gough argued in 1968, Kerala societywas highly stratified. The regularrains and reliable,profitable crops demanded less effort from bulk ofthepopulation. Highercastescould avoid all menial the tasksand leave cultivationto lowercasteswho wereconsideredto pollute their not of superiors merely touchbuton sight.The children high-caste by familieshad theleisureto attendvillage schools which theirfamilieshad thewealth to support. Two points,however, need to be made. First, seemsvery it doubtfulthat wereas high as Gough estimated; thepercentages second,thelocal schools in Kerala did not collapse completely-as theyappear to have done in many other places-in the firstsixty years of the nineteenthcentury. Indeed, it was theselocal schools that so enthused Madhava Rao in the 1860s. Schools need not promoteliteracy. They can-and in India beforethe late nineteenth century, theydid-have otheraims: the teachingof cusI Travancore (Trivandrum:Government Report(hereafter, TAR), 1866-7, Administration Press, 1868),p. 78. KathleenGough, "Literacyin Kerala," in JackGoody,ed., Literacyin TraditionSociePress, 1968), pp. 132-60;P.K. Michael Tharakan, ties (Cambridge: Cambridge University Century Travan"Socio-Economic Factorsin Educational Development.Case ofNineteenth core," Economic and Political Weekly,10 Nov. 1984,pp. 1915-16,like me, findsGough's estimateunreasonablyhigh. I HarveyJ. Graff, ed., Literacyand Social Development in the West(Cambridge: CamPress, 1981),p. 8; KingsleyDavis, The Population of India and Pakistan bridge University Press,1951),p. 153; EvelynS. Rawski, EducaPrincetonUniversity (Princeton,New Jersey: of tion and Popular Literacyin Ch'ing China (Ann Arbor,Michigan: University Michigan Press, 1979),p. 9.

450

How WomenMade Kerala Literate toms,religiousstories, handiwork.Beforetheintroduction theprinting of press,widespreadliteracy was neither possible nor particularly desirable.6 did Moreover, evenifchildren learntheir letters, they had little opportunity was nothingto read. G.W. Leitner,thehistorian to retaintheskill if there ofpre-British educationin thePunjab, asserts thatMaharaja Ranjit Singh, having finishedstudyingat the age of nine, "had forgotten letters."7 his Loss ofliteracy fairly is commonamong people who have no reason to use theskill,even in societieswherereading materialis widelyavailable.8 To be sure, theevidencesuggeststhathigh-caste(and wealthySyrian Christian) Malayalis (see Table 1) were likely to have been more literate thanotherIndians before printingwas introduced.However,theproportion of literateswould not have been great.Given the factthat the local schools continued to functionin Kerala in the nineteenthcentury, the of literacy figures roughly5 or 6 percent thetotalpopulation (20 percent of of Nayar males),9arrivedat in the censuses of the 1870s,may have been about rightforearliertimesas well. At theturnofthiscentury, old village schools werestillcommonin the and Cochin.10 we have seen,whenTravancorebegan to As Malabar District education system,the Dewan (the develop its government-regulated Maharaja's chiefexecutive officer) foundin 1867that"thecountry abounds withindigenousschools."" Indeed, theold schools threatened frustrate to the aim of spreading "the blessings of a sound [i.e., literacy-oriented] education in thevernacularlanguage."12 Government vernacularschools encountered the . "greatopposition from indigenousmasters .. who often setup opposition schools in theclose proximity theGovernment of schools theirbestefforts induce theparentsof theboysand girlsto to and put forth patronizetheirown schools."13 The government's responsewas to coopt local mastersbyappointing them to posts in government-approved schools and lettingthem teach someofthetime-honoured vocal singingand poetry, subjects- "astrology, didacticand religious." Such schools were"well attended, competition the and beingdestroyed theinfluenceofthenativemaster beingenlistedin the cause of thenew system."'14
6 Consider Benedict Anderson's emphasis on the importance of the birth of "printSee his Imagined Communities(London: century. capitalism" forEurope in the sixteenth Verso,1983),especiallychaps. 2 and 3. 7G.W. Leitner,HistoryofIndigenous Education in thePunjab since Annexationand in 1882 [1882] (Delhi: Amar Prakashan, 1982),p. 30. 8 RobertRoberts, Press,1968), University Imprisoned Tongues (Manchester:Manchester pp. 4-5, 145. Press,1875),pp. 245-46. 9Censusof Travancore,1875 (Trivandrum:Government 10T.K. Gopal Panikkar,Malabar and Its Folk (Madras: Natesan, 1900),pp. 147-49. "TAR, 1866-67,p. 78. 12 Memorandum by T. Madhava Rao, Dewan, 1866, (Travancore Government English KS). Trivandrum(hereafter, TGER), File No. 15982,Kerala Secretariat, Records hereafter, "3TAR,1872-73,pp. 128-29. 14 Ibid., pp. 128-29.

451

Pacific Affairs Four aspectsof thispassage need emphasis. First,theold village school was popular and had survived seventy yearsofBritish overrule. This was in as contrast, we shall see,withBengal and Punjab, wherethelocal systems within a generationor two of the British had been virtuallydestroyed conquest. Second, the curriculumof the old schools stressedlearning through than throughliteracy. recitation rather Teaching people to read and write need not be themain aim of schooling.15 Third, theold schools attracted bothboysand girls.The schools testify to thegreater freedom enjoyedby Malayali women. Fourth,theTravancoregovernment chose tooffer "modern"education in vernacular primaryschools, not English secondaryschools. It also but popular features. permitted old schools to retainold-fashioned the In theiroriginal form,these schools were not intendedprimarilyto propagate literacy.Rather,theyimbued pupils with the customsof old Kerala. The schoolmaster as taughtthemsongs,poems and stories, well as a littlearithmetic, astrology, ayurvedic medicine,and evenperhaps "some ornamentalsewing."'6 He piercedtheirears and initiatedtheminto other social customs.'7 Literacy becamea desirablegoal onlyfrom about the1860sonwardsas a result of government policy, economic opportunities,and the growing availability of things that could-or had to-be read. In short,literacy becameprofitable necessary.'8 and BenedictAnderson's"print-capitalism" had arrived.'9In 1866,theTravancore government appointed a full-time Directorof VernacularEducation-twenty-four Cochin took yearsbefore also setup a VernacularBook Committee thesame step.The government which by the early 1870s had written, translatedinto Malayalam, a or numberof textbooks.20 added a further It incentiveforschool-going: the to in introduction "a generaltest be passed as a conditionofemployment of thesircar[government] servicein any capacityabove thatof a peon [mes"21 senger]. Well-to-do families with relatives already working for the understoodthe message: see thatyourwards satisfy new the government
requirements.
'5 Ananda E. Wood, Knowledge beforePrinting and After:The Indian Tradition in Press,1985),pp. 7-8,illustrates importhe Changing Kerala (New Delhi: OxfordUniversity and recitation. tanceof memory 16 K. Sankaran Nambudiripad,in Wood, Knowledge,p. 39. 17 Mannath Padmanabhan, Ente Jivitasmaranakal (Trivandrum: Nair Service Society Press,1957[?]), p. 3. 18 Tharakan, "Socio-Economic Factors,"part2, pp. 1959,1963-64, emphasizestheimpordesirable.I would also stress of in tanceofthecommercialization agriculture makingliteracy the of theinsistence thegovernments Travancore(fromthe1860s)and Cochin (from 1890s) of on "qualified" employees. 19Anderson, pp. 46-49. Imagined Communities, 20 Shungarasoobyer Madhava Rao, 10 March 1869,TGER, 290; Madhava Rao to Shunto The 3 garasoobyer, Nov. 1870,TGER, 15982.Details are in Robin Jeffrey, Decline of Nayar Press, 1976),pp. 80, 149-50. Dominance (London: Sussex University 21Memorandum Madhava Rao (1866), TGER 15982. by

452

How WomenMade Kerala Literate In the early 1870s, the Travancore government introduceda further As innovation:thegrant-in-aid. partoftheplan tocoopt thevillagemaster, schools that met certain standardswere awarded a grant based on the numberof students therolls. Christianmissionarieswerealso quick to on tap such assistance.By 1881,Travancorehad 600 vernacularschools (with or 25,000pupils) eitherrun by thegovernment receivinggrants.By 1891, the figures risen 1,200 had to schools 60,000pUpilS.22 Bythe and mid-i890s, the Travancore government claimed that 40 percentof the school-aged population-boys and girls-were attendingschool.23 By preserving old schools,theTravancoregovernment the retainedthe trust elderswilling to send theirchargesto institutions of run by known did not learn new tricks and respectedmasters.But theold masters overnight,and literacy only slowlybecamea goal of such schools. It becamea of goal, moreover,not so much through the efforts the old mastersas throughthegrowingdemandsofguardians:bythe1890s,thelargemajoritywantedtheir chargesto learntoreadand writebecause oftheprofit that could be gained thereby. Commerceand bureaucracy expandedirresistibly, bringing gain to thosewho had skillsand qualifications-and foreshadowfor ing disaster thosewho had none. People could notignoresuchchanges: ifyou did not learn to deal withpapers,papers would deal withyou. At thesame time,young men,paid bythegovernment and themselves of theproductoftheregulatedsystem education,began toworkside byside withtheold masters. MannathPadmanabhan,for example,discovered that education that guardians were willing to pay money for the systematic teachers like himself wereable to give.24 Cochin. The neighbouringprincelystate of Cochin followed different of Travancore.Yet-and thispoints to theimportance Kerapolicies from la's culture-Cochin producedthesame levelsof literacy and demandsfor literacy-oriented schooling. Untouchedbynew-fashioned Maharajas untilabout 1890,Cochin was and twenty yearsbehindTravancorein "modernizing"itsadministration substantialamountsof moneyto education,particularly vercommitting in to nacular education. On thecontrary, the1870sitattempted establisha network district of English schools thatwould channel boysinto theHigh School in Ernakulam.The plan, however, encountered "theunwillingness ofparentsto send their childrento a distantplace."25Movement, evenin a statelike Cochin, was still difficult. 1881,Cochin had small, compact By in for only860 students government-approved schools,orone student every
22 Atholl MacGregor, Resident,to theChiefSecretary theMadras Government, May 12 to 1880,Madras Political Proceedings,Government OrderNo. 304, 9 July1880,in the Madras ResidencyRecords,National Archives India. of 23TAR,1895-96,p. 140. 24 Padmanabhan, Ente,pp. 12-13. 25Cochin Administrative Report (hereafter, CAR), 1870-71,p. 16.

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Pacific Affairs

698 people; Travancore's ratio was one studentforevery76 people (see Table 2).
TABLE RATIO OF STUDENTS TRAVANCORE AND COCHIN,

2
1870-1TO 1940-1
SCHOOLS TOTOTAL POPULATION.

IN GOVERNMENT-RECOGNIZED

Year

Population (thousands) 2,300* 2,300 2,500 2,600 3,000 3,400 3,900 5,100 6,100

Travancore Students to PopStudents ulation 3,100 20,900 33,100 84,500 184,600 159,700 392,900 575,500 747,300 1:742 1:110 1:76 1:31 1:16 1:21 1:10 1:9 1:8

Population (thousands) 600* 600 600 700 800 900 1,000 1,200 1,400

Cochin Students to PopStudents ulation 200 750 860 2,400 17,200 39,500 84,900 146,000 177,000 1:3000 1:800 1:698 1:287 1:47 1:23 1:12 1:8 1:8

1870-1 1875-6 1880-1 1890-1 1900-01 1910-11 1920-1 1930-1 1940-1

and Sources: Administration Reports ofTravancore Cochinfortheappropriate years; and Cochinvolumes theappropriate for Census of India, Travancore years; Statisticsof from Government 1920. Travancore(Trivandrum: Press), annually Note:* At1875 census.

been noticed."28 1898, when Travancore claimed that 64 percentof By boysof school-goingage werein government-approved schools,Cochin's both werefarahead of the figurewas only 42 percent.In further contrast, of whereonly27 percent school-agedboysweresaid to Madras Presidency, be studying.29 workedat a different The two governments incentives pace in offering to lower castes,girls,and Muslims. Travancoreabolished feesforgirlsin it At incentives schools schools in 1896.30 thesame time, offered for primary
26

in 1891, "which hitherto . . . received little or no attention . . . has at last

Until the 1890s,Cochin also spent a lower proportionof its annual budget on education than Travancore.26Thus, while Travancore was spending substantial amounts on cheap, popular, local, vernacular to schools,Cochin untilthe1890sattempted promotesecondary education in English. It appointeda Superintendent VernacularEducation onlyin of 1890 and began to distribute grantsto privateeducational bodies only in "Vernaculareducation," wrotetheBritishResidentabout Cochin 1889.27

30 Hannyngtonto ChiefSecretary, April 1891,CARs, v/10/989 (India OfficeLibrary). 29J.D. Rees, Resident,to Chief Secretary, July1898,CARs, 1896-97(IOL). 30 30 Travancore Government Gazette(Trivandrum:Government Press) (hereafter, TGG), vol. XXXIV, no. 22 (2 June 1896).
28

27CAR, 1889-90,P. 94.

Travancorein 1885-6spent3.3 percentof its budgeton education; Cochin, 2.8 percent.

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How Women Made Kerala Literate

Ten yearslater it made primary establishedforthe "backward castes.""31 In for educationfor education free all lowercastes.32 Cochin, free primary girlsand lower-caste Hindus came only in 1909.33 The different timing increasesin enrolment of showsclearlyin Table 2. 16 Travancore'sratioofone student every people in 1901was nearlythree to thanCochin's 1:47.By 1921,theratioin Travancorewas 1:10, timesgreater and nearly a quarter of all Travancoreans were literate(see Table 4). Cochin reached the same levels in the next ten years.It is reasonable to assume that these increases resultedfromlarge numbersof lower-caste time. In Cochin, forexample, the studentsgoing to schools forthe first increasedfrom7 percentin 1911 to 12 proportionof lower-caste students percentin 1920 and 25 percentin 1926.34 In Travancore, the numberof "backwardcaste" students increasedfrom6,500 to 16,000in theyearafter their education became free. By 1910, they represented10 percent of enrolments.35 Table 3 further clarifies timing.Until about 1910,Travancorespent the more moneyper person on education than Cochin. This is particularly noticeablein thefirst twenty-year period. But as late as 1900,Travancore was spending one rupee on education forevery5.6 people; Cochin, one
TABLE TRAVANCORE AND COCHIN,

3
1870-71 TO 1940-41
SPENT ON EDUCATION,

NUMBER OF PEOPLE FOR EACH RUPEE

Year

Travancore Educ. Pop. Expend. People '000s '000 rupees per rupee 2,300* 2,300 2,500 2,600 3,000 3,400 3,900 5,100 6,100 123 195 184 272 532 742 3,221 4,910 5,129 18.7 11.8 13.6 9.6 5.6 4.6 1.2 1.0 1.2

Pop. '000 600* 600 600 700 800 900 1,000 1,200 1,400

Cochin Educ. Expend. People '000 rupees per rupee 10 20 28 72 99 279 892 1,403 1,899 60.0 30.0 21.4 9.7 8.1 3.2 1.1 0.9 0.7

1870-1 1875-6 1880-1 1890-1 1900-01 1910-11 1920-1 1930-1 1940-1

and Sources: Censuses Administration Reports. Note:* At1875 census.

31 J.W. Gladstone, Protestant Christianity and People's Movementsin Kerala (Trivandrum:SeminaryPublications, 1984),p. 271. 32 Census ofIndia (hereafter, ofI), 1911,vol. XXIII, Travancore, C part 1,Report,p. 163. 33CAR, 1908-09, 50. p. 34 Report of the Education Survey Committee, Cochin State (Ernakulam: Cochin Government Press,1934),p. 24; CAR, 1911-12,pp. 40-41. 35 Gladstone,Protestant Christianity, 274. p.

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Pacific Affairs rupee for every8.1 people. The Travancore government thus made an to earlier, heaviercommitment educationand directed increasingly it from the 1890s towardslarge,hitherto excluded groups. This helps to explain the sharp increasesin therateof literacy which began to show up in the Linking Policy and Literacy.But did Travancore'sefforts from 1860sto the to If coopt thevillage school makeanydifference itslaterliteracy rates? one looks hastily theliteracy at figures thecensuses, in one could arguethatthis strategy simply wasted resourcesand retardedthe spread of literacy(see Table 4). For all itsimaginativepolicies and expenditure, Travancorewas in behindCochin in literacy 1891,and thetwostates considerably remained World roughly equal forthenextgeneration. Only in thedecadeoftheFirst War did Travancoreappear to surgeahead. Whyshould it have takenfifty yearsforits educational policies to show dramaticresults?
TABLE LITERACY PERCENTAGES,

1910s.

4
1871-1981,FOR
SELECTED AREAS

MALE AND FEMALE COMBINED,

1871-75 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 11.0 12.4 15.0 24.2 Travancore 5.7 4.4 - 18.0 13.4 15.1 18.5 Cochin Malabar District 5.3 9.9 9.1 10.1 11.1 12.7 KERALA Tinnevelly 8.2 10.0 12.4 13.3 14.8 8.8 Tanjore MadrasPresidency5.0 7.8 6.3 7.5 8.6 9.3 TAMILNAD ALL INDIA 5.8 5.3 5.9 7.1 23.9 47.1 4 28.2 41.0 45.8 14.4 30.9 40.7 46.8 60.4 69.2 25.7 25.7 36.4t 13.0 19.3 20.8 31.4 39.5 45.8 9.5 15.1 16.6 24.0 29.5 36.2
-

23.2 33.7

Sources: Census ofIndia forrelevant years. Notes: * Travancore-Cochinstatewas formed 1949. in 48.6 percentin 1961). t Kanyakumariarea now a separatedistrict (literacy:

is There areat leastthree possibleexplanations.The first thatthecensus unreliable.The second is thatTravancore'spolicies in are statistics totally the late nineteenth century-itsreadinessto accommodatetheold typeof The third the schoolmaster-may in facthave retarded spread of literacy. is possibility morecomplicated,but,I believe,moreaccurate.It is this:that for thefigures particularcensuseserred;thatit tookmorethantwogenerato tionsforgovernments makeliteracy-oriented educationreadily available to most sections of society;and that Travancore's gentlenesswith the the village schoolmaster prevented childrenofthe"respectable poor" from abandoning schooling, as happened to some extentin Cochin when a was introducedin the 1890s. strictly regulatedsystem over the Cochin and Travancore literacy ratesin the My perplextity nineteenth century (see Table 4) was sharedby Cochin's census commis456

How WomenMade Kerala Literate ratethan sionerin 1891.Whyshould Cochin have shown a higherliteracy towards Travancore?Cochin, he wrote,had begun to commitits efforts educationonlyeightmonthsbefore censuswas carried the vernacular out; Travancore had been making similar efforts nearly 25 years: "one for '36 the cannot help being surprised.' He attributed anomaly to underenumerationof literatesin Travancore. To some extent,he may have been right. had characteristics makeitreasonabletosuppose that Cochin, however, it would have a higher rate of literacythan Travancore. First,more of Cochin's people lived in towns-seven percentagainst 4.2 percent in 189137-and town-dwellers more likelyto be literate.38 are Cochin, moreover, was a small state with a larger proportion of functionariesand courtiersthan Travancore. It had also long been famous forits portand overseastrade.In earliertimes,theseaspectswould have raisedtheproportion of literates. But whywas Cochin apparentlyless literate thanTravancorein 1875? There is a plausible explanation.Cochin's administration thenamong was in would themostcaste-boundand old-fashioned India. Its census-takers have been even moreloath than thosein Travancoreto inquire too closely of about theattributes "polluting" castes or thewomen of "respectable" The administrative families. modernization thatTravancorepursuedfrom the 1860s did not happen in Cochin until the late 1880s. Even Malabar District had a more systematic,bureaucratizedadministration than Cochin. Cochin's census commissionerin 1875 admittedthat "there is some reason to suspect that the Enumeratorshave done theirwork in a manner. Several of my friends. .. have told me that their perfunctory 39 in scheduleswerefilledup withouttheir knowledge.' The commissioner 1891 contended that earlier censuses had involved "considerable fudgin Literatesin Cochin maywell have been underestimated 1875and ing."40 moreaccurately calculated in 1891. towardstheold village master Travancore'sgentleness encouragedthe childrenof the "respectablepoor" to continue to attend school. In old familieshad oftensponsoredvillage schools, to which Kerala, high-caste less families also senttheir children. other, wealthy (but usuallyhigh-caste) The introduction a government-regulated of school system requiringstudents to pay fees,buy books, and attend regularlycould have made it for difficult the "respectablepoor" to keep theirchildrenin school. In Travancore, the old village schools were only slowly absorbed into the
Census of Cochin (hereafter of C), 1891,vol. I, Report,p. 88. C 1931,vol. XXI; Cochin, part 1, Reportp. 22. 38 Literacy in Travancore'snineteentownsin 1921,forexample, was roughly50 percent greater than thestateaverage. C of I, 1921,vol. XXV, Travancore,part 1, Report,p. 81. 39 C of C, 1875,p. 16. 40 C of C, 1891,vol. I, p. 25.
36

37 C of I,

457

PacificAffairs government system, and its rigours were only slowly applied-keeping of pace, one mayguess,withguardians'growingrealizationofthenecessity education. Travancoredid show a steadyincrease qualification-granting in literacy between1875and 1891(5.7 to 11 percent).Perhaps we can infer poor" continuedtoattendtherelaxed, thatthechildrenofthe"respectable local schools. Remaining but moreand moreregulated,literacy-oriented popular and respected,these schools increasinglyprovided a desirable commodity-literacy. Developments in Cochin offersupporting evidence. The Cochin with the local schools until the 1890s.The government not interfere did of resultwas thatin the late 1870sand 1880s,as theprofitability literacy became moreapparent,the "respectablepoor" still senttheirchildrento the local school, whose mastercontinuedto enjoy thepatronageof prosbecause literacy was now more perous families.Childrenbecame literate, rosemoresharply widelyvalued. Between1875and 1891,Cochin's literacy thanTravancore's (even allowing forinaccuraciesin thecensuses).In the If of now was past,moreresidents Cochin had reasonto be literate. literacy what guardians wanted, the village schoolmaster,in his lax way, was capable of impartingit. The childrenof the "respectablepoor" flowedto school unabated. In the1890s, Cochin abruptly of adopteda system government however, and his relaxedschool foundno place. regulationin which theold master As a result,childrenof the "respectablepoor" oftenstoppedgoing to any school at all. The village school did not provide the qualifications the thoseto whom it would givejobs. Afflunow demandedfrom government ent families-who had formerly supported the village school and its schools. For master-sent their children to the government-regulated schools were too rigid and costly.Thus, in many, the new government fell Cochin, literacy between1891and 1901. Indeed, the census commissionerin 1891 expectedthe old schools to witheraway and thoughtit unlikelythatgovernment-regulated schools He a and would be able tofilltheir place entirely. predicted fallin literacy,4' he was right. By 1901, Cochin's literacyrate had dropped-from 18.0 of thanTravancore's.The introduction better percentto 13.3,stillslightly schools had undercut the old masters;and the government-regulated "respectablepoor," unable to cope with the demand forregularfeesand attendance,now did not send theirchildrento school at all.42In 1911,the census commissionerexplicitlyaccounted fordevelopmentsin Cochin. of of "The immediateeffect" the introduction the government-regulated in of the of system education in 1890was "a retrogression literacy, growth schools ofthemoderntypenothaving keptpace withthedecayof primary

42 42

Ibid., pp. 92-93. C of 1, 1901, Vol. XX, Cochin, pp. part1,Report, 98-99.

458

How WomenMade Kerala Literate to theold indigenous schools."43It took twenty yearsforthe new system takeup theslack leftby theold. it Malabar and Elsewhere.In thiscontext, is worthcomparingKerala with otherareas ofIndia, forthey, too,had village schoolsbefore imposition the ofa Britishsystem education. The crucial differences of seem to be thatin Kerala thesevillage schools were more deeply embeddedin societythan elsewhere,and that in Travancore the governmentcoopted them. (In Malabar, theywere leftlargelyunchallengeduntil the beginningof this century.) In Bengal, William Adam's surveysof rural education in the 1830s of estimatedthat two-thirds villages had a school-making a total of perhaps a hundredthousandschools in thevast province." Such schools were "based largelyon oral work" and had no printedbooks. Schools in Kerala, as we have seen,weresimilar.Literacywas not theirgoal.45Adam of advocateda strategy incorporating thesepopular local institutions a into education system. But Macaulay British-style, Bengali-medium,primary and theadvocatesofthe"filtration theory"-thathigherstudiesin English would "filterdown" to the masses-won the debates at the top levels of government, Adam's plans werenot attempted.46 and Having lost their wealthiest, highest-status pupils to thequalification-granting BritishsyswithCochin's experience tem,thelocal schools collapsed. The similarities after1890are notable. In Punjab, Leitner,thefirst principleof Government College, Lahore, identified same process. He contendedthatBritish-sponsored the education fromabout 1850 had largelydestroyed flourishingvillage school a When the Britishannexed the Punjab in 1849,he argued,about system. 330,000pupils had beenattending morethan village schools. In 1882,after this twenty yearsof Britisheducational efforts, had plummetedto 190,000 had striven lurepupils pupils.47Officialsof theEducation Department to from the indigenous schools, and because "official" credentialswere as increasingly regarded essential,theold village schools fadedaway.48 Leitner'sremarkemphasizedtheimportant factthatliteracy increases when people come to see it as a useful,saleable skill. But in BritishIndia, thereal value layin English literacy, whichwas farbeyondtheaspirations
p. C of I, 1911, vol. XVIII, Cochin, part1,Report, 53. E. Daniel Potts,BritishBaptist Missionaries in India, 1793-1837(Cambridge: CamPress,1967),p. 114. bridgeUniversity of 45 Kazi Shahidullah, "Patshalas into Schools: theDevelopment IndigenousElementary of University Westunpublished doctoraldiss. in History, Education in Bengal, 1854-1905," to ernAustralia,1983.I am grateful Dr. Shahidullah forlettingme read his thesisand to Dr. PeterReeves forbringingit to myattention. 46 P.L. Rawat, HistoryofIndian Education [1956] (Agra: Ram Prasad and Sons, 1981),p. 160. pp. i, 16. History, 4 Leitner, 48Ibid., p. 1.
43 44

459

PacificAffairs of thevast majorityof villagers.The princelygovernment Travancore of as chose to emphasize vernacularliteracy an acceptable qualification for reinforced firmly the established manyofitsoffices. thereby It school-going tendency thatalreadyexistedin Kerala. The example of Malabar District supports the proposition that government activity producedaccelerationsin literacy rates,but peculiar features Kerala's culturedetermined of Malayalis' eagerresponseto particMalabar was a relatively ular kindsof initiatives. neglecteddistrict the on It of periphery theMadras Presidency. had a high proportion(roughly30 percent)of poor Mappila (Muslim) tenantsand landless labourers.Yet fromthe first census in 1871, Malabar neverranked lower than thirdin of and its literacy literacy among districts thePresidency, ratewas always well ahead of thePresidency and theall-Indian averages.Moreover-and to herewe return thecrucial aspectof Kerala's culture-in femaleliteracy, Malabar always led the Presidency.The matrilineal customs of many Hindu castesundoubtedly explain thisaspect,forMalabar had fewChristians,and literacy Hindus was among Muslim womenand thelowest-caste low. Malabar, however, shareda commonculturalbase withotherareas of could rise-once theconditionsfor Kerala.Fromthatbase,literacy promoting it were established.Those conditions were the same as elsewherein Kerala: most social groups had to perceivethatliteracy was profitable; a school system, literacy-oriented open to mostsocial groups,had to exist; had to be materialto read. and there of By 1951,Malabar was themostliterate district theMadrasPresidency. for Moreimportant mypurposes,itsliteracy had showna similarsteep rate climb between1931and 1951 (14.4 to 30.9 percent),49 Travancore'sand as Cochin's had in earlierdecades. The timingof thisaccelerationwas relatedto government activity, and in Malabar, too,thetime-lagappears to have beenabout twenty years. The reforms introducedin the India Act of 1919 led the local-government to Madras government spend more moneyon education.50 The people of Malabar seized theseopportunities.They were,after all, Malayalis; they had relativesin Cochin and Travancore; and social movements and economic opportunitiesin the two statesalso affected Malabar people.51By 1936,the Malabar DistrictBoard ran twelvehundredschools, more than in any otherdistrict the Presidency. Though Malabar accounted forless
19C ofI, 1951,vol. III, Madrasand Coorg,part1,Report,pp. 202-23.Because ofthewar,the census of 1941in BritishIndia did not compile literacy statistics. 50 From Rs. 9.4 million in 1917-18to Rs. 15.3 million in 1922-23and Rs. 24.2 million in 1932-33.See C.J.Baker,The PoliticsofSouth India, 1920-37(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1976),p. 17; C of I, 1961, vol. IX, Madras, part X-V, DistrictCensus Handbook: Thanjavur, vol. I, p. 33. 51 See, forexample, Robin Jeffrey, "Travancore: Status,Class and thegrowthof Radical Politics," in Jeffrey, People, Princesand ParamountPower (New Delhi: OxfordUnivered., sityPress,1978),pp. 136-69.

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How WomenMade Kerala Literate population, it had 10 percent the of thaneightpercentof thePresidency's schools. And more than 70 percentof those schools were run, not by but the provincial government, by local managementsreceivinggrants-

but Malabar reinforces the points I have made about the different, rolesof Kerala cultureand government in activity fostercomplementary, ing literacy.In pre-British times,most Malayalis-the largestexception withschoolingand readytosendeventheir beingMappilas-were familiar rather thansimplyschoolgirlstoschools. Once theadvantagesofliteracy, schooling (which gave ing, were perceived,and once literacy-oriented was put within people saleable qualificationson thebasis of thatliteracy) reach,Malayalis of mostcastesand religionsflockedto such institutions. fromtheold village schools,which did not stress However,thetransition literacy or hand out "qualifications," to the government-supervised or years.This, I think,goes schools, which did do so, took twenty thirty ratesin Travancoreafter somewaytowards explaining thesurgein literacy 1911,in Cochin after1921,and in Malabar after1931. The career Madhava Rao after left dewanshipofTravancorein of he the of in evidencefortheimportance Kerala'sculture genfurther 1872provides In eratingliteracy. 1875,he wentas Dewan to the large princelystateof Baroda in what is today Gujarat, where he attemptedto duplicate the education systemhe had set up in Travancore. He starteda vernacular education department, quadrupled spending on education, and had a controlwhenhe hundredand eighty vernacular schools undergovernment in retired.53 Thereafter, literacy Baroda alwaysexceededtheall-India averin while in Kerala it age. But femaleliteracy 1901 was only 0.8 percent, rangedfrom3 percentin Malabar to 4.5 percentin Cochin. By 1941,total literacyin Baroda was 23 percent,only slightlymore than half that of Travancore or Couchin.54 Baroda lacked Kerala's particular cultural attributes-especiallyKerala's attitudeto women. One can multiplyexamples thatpoint to the importanceof Kerala's culture in explaining its literacy.Tanjore (Thanjavur) Districtwas the in in of mostliterate theMadras Presidency 1901.Its famedconcentration Brahmins gave it a male literacyrate of 24 percent,higher than thatin to Travancoreor Cochin. ButTamil Brahminswerereluctant educatetheir girls. Female education was not encourageduntil well into the twentieth in and less century, femaleliteracy 1901was only0.9 percent, thana sixthof ratewas roughlythesame thatin Cochin. By 1921,Tanjore's totalliteracy was as Malabar's (about 13percent).Tanjore's high male literacy compen52 "Reporton theBifurcation theMalabar District of Board," bytheSpecial Officer, July 19 no. 1936,Madras Local Administration, 3258of25 August 1937(Tamilnad Archives) (hereafter,TNA); The Hindu, 24 March 1953,p. 9. 5 Philip W. Sergeant, The Ruler ofBaroda (London: JohnMurray, 1928),pp. 56, 197-98.

in-aid.52

54 C of I,

1941, XVII,Baroda, 89,110. vol. pp.

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Pacific Affairs always the highestin the Presidsated forby Malabar's femaleliteracy, sons; literate men have literate The lesson seemsto be this:literate ency.55 grewon a culturalbase that children.Kerala's literacy womenhave literate was favourableto schooling-even forgirls.
CULTURE:

How

WOMEN

MADE KERALA LITERATE

tolda of Janamma,themother thediplomat K.P.S. Menon (1898-1982), the thatvividlyillustrated distinctive place ofwomenand schooling story in Kerala's culture. [This was in "One day,"shewouldsay,"I was goingto schoolwithmyfriends. the I in Travancore the 1870s.] was only 14 then.A couple of boyscamefrom breasts.' to and direction pointing me,said,'That girlhas magnificent opposite of words but I justa few Theythought wouldnotunderstand, I did.I knewthen the flared andI usedan abusive expression, Malayalam up English.... Mytemper coconut!'Somehowmyfather of translation whichis, 'Your mother's politest of and shallnotgo toschoolany incident hedecreed, 'Janamma cametoknow this whyI'm suchan ignoraand That was theendof myeducation, that's longer.'
mus."56

not In the1870swe finda girlofgood caste(a Nayar),well past puberty, on unescorted merely going to school,butgoing to school withherfriends, about being an ignoramus(indeed,she a public road. Belyingherremark in knew enough English to understandtheboys),she was highlyliterate old," day Malayalam. "I would sitbyhersideevery untilI was 14or 15years K.P.S. Menon wrote, "and hear her read the Puranas [mythicHindu it Moreover, appears thatJanamma was fairlytypical.In 1877, tales]."57 thatmostof the declared:"It is remarkable Samuel Mateer,a missionary, Sudra [i.e., Nayar]femalesare taughtto read and write."58 be withattitudes elsewherein India could scarcely more The contrast forexample,William Adam reported the 1830sthat in In striking. Bengal, of "the majority Hindu families"believedthat"a girl taughtto writeand that becomea widow,. . . theworst misfortune after readwill soon marriage befall. .. thesex." In Gujarat, ifa small girl began to play withpens can to her and books,adults would try distract with toys.59 As long as censuseshave been taken,women in Kerala have been more literatethan women in otherparts of India. The proportionof females was tiny-less than one percentin the literatein the nineteenth century 1870s (see Table 5). Yet even at this stage, women in Travancore and Cochin appear to have been more than twice as literateas those in the
1931,vol. XIV, Madras, part 1, Report,p. 283. K.P.S. Menon, Many Worlds[1965] (Bombay: Pearl Books, 1971),p. 4. 57Ibid., p. 7. 58 Samuel Mateer, Native Life in Travancore(London: JohnSnow, 1871),p. 38. 59ChitraDesai, Girls'School Education and Social Change (Bombay:A.R. Sheth,1976),p. pp. 187-8. 130. The quotation fromAdam is fromhis second report,
55 C of I,
56

462

How WomenMade Kerala Literate neighbouringMadras Presidency.Thereafter, proportionof literate the Kerala women increased-steadily until 1911 and spectacularlybetween 1911and 1941.By thelatter year,roughlya thirdofall femalesin Travancore and Cochin wereliterate. In 1921, the proportionof literatewomen in Travancore was nearly than thatforIndia as a whole: 15 percentofall females eighttimesgreater wereliteratein Travancore; in India, 1.9 percent.By 1981,65 out of every in hundredwomenand girlsin Kerala wereliterate; India as a whole,only of in hundred.Of womenover15years age, 71 percent Kerala 25 out ofevery in wereliterate; India, 26 percent.60
TABLE PERCENTAGE OF FEMALES LITERATE,

1875-1981, FOR SELECTED

AREAS

1875 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981

Travancore Cochin Malabar Dt KERALA Tinnevelly Tanjore Madras Psy TAMILNAD ALL INDIA

3.5 3.1 0.5 0.4 - 5.5 4.5 - 3.9 3.0 1.7 1.5 1.6 - 0.7 0.8 0.9 0.2 0.6 0.7 0.9 - 0.4 0.5 0.7

5.0 6.1 3.5 3.3 1.5 1.3 1.1

15.0 9.4 4.9 4.4 2.4 2.1 1.9

13.9 36.0) 37 0* 18.5 30.6) 7.5# - 21.0 - 38.9 54.3 64.5 5.7# - 13.8 23.5t 3.5# - 10.3 18.7 2.6 6.6#10.0 - 18.2 26.9 34.1 2.4 6.9 9.3 12.9 18.7 24.9

Sources: Census ofIndia forrelevantyears. # 5. Notes: Excludes under girls

*

in state Travancore-Cochin wasformed 1949. area district 40.7 in It t Kanyakumari nowa separate (female literacy: percent 1961). district. is a Christian-majority District often thehighest had leveloffemale in N.B.: i) Tinnevelly literacy the in Madras Presidency; Status Women India (NewDelhi:IndianCouncilof ii) of as 7.9 SocialScience for Research, 1975), 188gives percent the1951 p. figure India.

betweenmale and femaleratesof literacy The differences have always been much narrowerin Kerala than elsewhere.In India in the 1890s,for example, therewas a male-femaleratio of 17 to 1. In Travancore,Cochin and Malabar, on theotherhand, theratiowas onlyabout 5 to 1. Moreover, by 1951 the disparitybetween male and female literacyin Travancore, was only Cochin, and Malabar had fallen to thepoint wheremale literacy thanfemale.In India as a whole, it was nearlythree about 1.6 timesgreater In timesgreater. the 1980s,Kerala has roughly115 literate males forevery are 100 literate females;nationally,the figures approximately190:100. details. First, Janamma's story helps to explain some of thesestriking Janammawas a Nayarbycaste,and Nayarsuntil the 1920sand 1930swere weretracedthroughthemother, matrilineal-descentand inheritance not
60

Press, 1985),p. 26. Women in Kerala, 1985 (Trivandrum:Government

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Pacific Affairs
TABLE PERCENTAGE OF MALES LITERATE,

6
SELECTED AREAS

1875-1981,FOR

1875 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 Travancore Cochin Malabar Dt KERALA Tinnevelly Tanjore Madras Psy TAMILNAD ALL-INDIA 11.1 8.4 9.7 22.1 22.6 10.3 6.6 19.1 23.8 16.4 22.9 24.1 11.6 8.7 21.5 22.4 17.2 20.3 11.9 9.8 24.8 24.3 19.0 21.8 13.9 10.6
33.1 33.8 58.1) 54 8* 27.4 38.3 44.6) 20.9 23.0 - 41.4 - 55.0 66.6 74.0 - 30.0 - 38.3 50.Ot 24.8 29.9 - 48.7 49.0 15.2 16.1 - 28.6 - 44.5 57.8 58.2 13.9#15.6# 25.0 34.3 39.5 46.7 -

Sources: Census ofIndia forrelevant years. Notes:#Excludes boys under5. * in Travancore-Cochinstatewas formed 1949. in 56.2 percent 1961). t Kanyakumariarea now a separatedistrict (male literacy: N.B.: Tinnevelly and Tanjore Districtsusually had the highest levels of male literacy theMadras Presidency. in

thefather. Nayars,to be sure,werenot thehighestcastein Kerala; but they accountedfor15-20percentof thepopulation. Beforetheestablishment of Britishrule, theyhad been soldiers;even undertheBritish,manyof them remainedlandownersand officials. Though themselves dividedinto "subconstituted largest"respectable"groupin Kerala. the castes,"together they did Matriliny among Nayarsin the nineteenth century not mean that womenruledthehousehold. Customrecognizedtheeldestmale in a Nayar as matrilinealjoint-family themanager.However,matriliny meantwider freedomforwomen, as Janamma's going to school in the 1870s shows. ease thananywhere else in Marriagesweremade and endedwithfargreater India, and women appear to have had a greatervoice in such decisions. Nayar familiesin many parts of Kerala were matrilocal,and a husband visitedhis wife'shouse. Their childrenlivedin themother's merely family, as includedhermother, well as hermaternalunclesand aunts, whichoften her brothers and sistersand her sisters'children.By the end of the ninehad begun to disintegrate, it was legislated this and teenth century, system out ofexistence, beginningin Travancorein the 1920s.But it providedthe soil in which femaleliteracy grew.6" matrilinealcaste-Hindus-notably Until the early twentieth century, Nayars-provided thereference group forKerala society.Even low castes, wereeager to imitatematrilinealpractices, given theopportunity, which included school-goingforgirls.62 When Westernstylesbegan to supplant those of caste-Hindusas the modelstoemulate,Kerala's largeChristian population (roughly percent 20
61 Jeffrey, Nayar Dominance, pp.
62

243-56,outlines thedetails of matriliny and its decay. Ibid., p. 146:Madra Mail, 24 September1924,p. 4; The Hindu, 23 December1941,p. 10.

464

How WomenMade Kerala Literate of the total) began to imitate European customs. As Christians,they with the new rulers.Like the British, believed theyhad a special affinity Christiansin Kerala began to encourage femaleeducation. It needs to be emphasized,however,thatuntil theearlytwentieth century, matrilinealcasteHindu womenexperienced freedom-and a larger greater proportion of themwere literate-than Christianwomen. As late as 1921 in Travancore, forexample, 34 percentof Nayar women were literateand only 31 of percent SyrianChristianwomen. Yet,whencomparedwiththenational average forfemaleliteracy(less than 2 percent),both figureswere amazinglyhigh.63 Matrilinyappears to be responsiblefora relatedaspect of Kerala that has long distinguishedit fromtherestof India. As long as censuseshave been taken,women have outnumberedmen. In 1901, the ratio was 1004 1000males. This rosesteadilyto 1034:1000in 1981,a time femalesforevery The Tamil Brahmin who wrote when the national ratio was 935:1000.64 Travancore'sfirst censusreportin 1875thoughtit important assertthat to among matrilineal castes,"a femalechild is prizedmorehighlythana male one."65We can also infer connectionwithliteracy: the because womenhad greater freedom, there werefewer objectionsto theirschool-going.Indeed, it verysoon became clear in the changed economic conditionsof the late thatliterate women werean asset. nineteenth century The abilityof matrilinealwomen to move about independently promoted literacyby making its utilityand profitobvious. Education and are When literacy required forwork,people is employment intertwined. educate their childrento suit themfor jobs. This seemsto be clear from the of example oftheemployment womenin salariedjobs in Kerala,especially in Travancoreand Cochin. As earlyas 1869,the Travancore government was able to induce eight a youngNayarwomen to trainas midwives, coursefourofthemcompleted, having passed therequisiteexamination in 1871.66 Nayar women appear, in fact, havesoughtout salariedemployment. 1894,six teenagedNayar In to women asked Travancore's chief medical officerto train them as antiof smallpox vaccinators."Consideringthedifficulty procuringfemalesfor such work" elsewhere, was greatly he As surprised.67 earlyas 1898,Travancore foundit necessary develop a schemeof maternity to leave forteachers in government schools.68 1909thefirst In Malayali woman,MaryPoonen, a
C of I, 1921,vol. XXV, Travancore,part 1, Report,p. 82. C ofI, 1961,vol. VII, Kerala, part 1 A(i), General Report,p. 82; Economic and Political Weekly,11 April 1981, p. 644. See also C of I, 1961, Monograph No. 7, The Changing Population ofKerala (New Delhi: Registrar-General, 1968)(by K. KrishnanNamboodiri),p. 67. 1875,p. 140(V. Nagam Aiya); C ofI, 1921,vol. XIX, Cochin, part 65 Census of Travancore, I, p. 33. 66 TGG, VII, 21 (1 June 1869) and IX, 9 (14 March 1871). 67 Durbar Physician to theDewan, 6 November1894, TGER, 2698 (KS). 68Dewanto Inspectorof Schools, SouthernRange, 3 May 1898,TGER, 12975.
63 64

465

Pacific Affairs medicine.In 1924she becamethe wentto Britainto study SyrianChristian, as first woman in India to head a government department, chiefmedical of officer Travancore,a post she held until 1942.69 in Bythemid-1930s,womenweredemandingspecial representation the Travancore legislature-as well as a separatesection in the Government in The Cochin census commissioner Press to trainwomen compositors.70 1941 pointed out that "many doctors,authors,teachersand clerks"were women, that a few had begun to practise as lawyers,and that Cochin supporteda "mixed club" in which men and women professionalswere A in own right.7' woman engineerhad becomean irrigation members their in and surveyofficer Cochin by 1944.72 By 1957, it was estimatedthat of Kerala one-thirdof theemployeesin the Secretariat the newlyformed statewerewomen.73 withwhichMalayali womensoughtliteracy-based The alacrity employwithconditionselsewherein India. Even in the mentcontrasts strikingly 1970s,one of the major obstacles confronting female-literacy campaigns lay in lack of motivationamong women themselves. "Their main question," according to one researcher, was: "'What do we do with education?'"74Not onlydid schoolingforgirlsappear tobringno benefits; was it fraught with apparentrisks:male teachers, example. The problemin for this instance is circular and worldwide: where women teachersare few, to In familiesare reluctant send theirgirlsto school.75 contrast, percent 58 in of Kerala's 185,000teachers 1985werewomen.76 Girls in Kerala wentto thelocal schools in pre-British times,Malayali women sought wage-earning employment as soon as-even beforein werepreparedto offer and a woman teacher Kerala very governments it, became a valued memberof her family.Indeed, by the 1930s, quickly officials in Travancore lamented that "the great majorityof girls ... but regardtheir education,notas somethingofculturalvalue in itself, as a direct meansofsecuringemployment competingwithmenin theopen and

69 Malabar Herald, 14 Aug. 1909. Madras Mall, 24 September1924,p. 4; The Hindu, 23 December 1941,p. 10. 70 The Hindu, 17 October 1935,p. 16. 71 C of I, 1941,vol. XIX, Cochin, part 1, Reportp. 58. 72 Madras StatesFortnightly halfof October 1944,Crown RepresentaReportforthefirst tive'sRecords,R/l/29/2707(IOL). 73 The Hindu, 26 Feb. 1957,p. 9. in of 74 SudharshanKumari,"Problem ofMotivation WomenforLiteracy," G. Sambasiva Rao, ed., Problems of Women's Literacy(Mysore: Central Instituteof Indian Languages, 1979),p. 71. 75 Desai, Girls' School Education, p. 108; MaryJean Bowman and C. Arnold Anderson, "The Participationof Women in Education in the Third World," in C.P. Kelly and C.M. of Elliott,eds., Women'sEducation in the Third World(Albany,New York:StateUniversity New York Press, 1982),p. 20. 76 Women in Kerala, 1985, p. 55.

466

How WomenMade Kerala Literate markets." 77Could there have been any otherregionin India wheresuch a remark would have been even plausible in 1933?78
LESSONS ABOUT LITERACY?

Anotherwoman entersthisstory fromthedirectionof theConnemara Marketin Trivandrum:a fisherwoman-Hindu or Christian,I couldn't basketon herhead. Sunset, tell-barefoot,thinas bamboo, a smelly, empty to and she was returning hervillage on thecoastafter day's selling.As she a bustled down Mahatma Gandhi Road, past the Victoria Jubilee Town a Hall, she spottedon the road a handbill advertising political meeting. Alteringdirectionslightlybut scarcelybreakingstride,she clutched the handbill betweenher toes. Withoutsettingdown herbasket,she benther knee and passed the notice into her hand. Then, reading intently, she hurriedon down thehill. "Literacy,"assertedDaniel Lerner thirty yearsago, "is the basic per"7 sonal skill thatunderliesthewhole modernizing sequence. Few scholars today would put so much faith in the capacity of literacyto produce "modernization"or "economic development."Indeed, mostwould stress about theidea that"educationis thekeytoeconomic "growingskepticism" growth.'"80 Yet few doubt that literacychanges people.8' John Kenneth Galbraith spelled out this feelingwhen he reflected the need to overon come the"cultureofpoverty" real before economicdevelopment begin: can "You can assess theprogressive partsofIndia bythosewheretheliteracy is literacythat comes first.We had our sequential prioritieswrong. We we thoughtwe could startwith capital investment; should have started in withinvestment education.'"82 In the last few years,the so-called "Kerala model" has attractedthe '83 of attention students Third World"development.' The model suggests of
77Travancore Education ReformsCommittee.Report (Trivandrum:Government Press, 1933),pp. 65-66. 78 We must not overemphasize theopportunitiesforwomen in Kerala. Today, like other Indian women, theydo not enjoy anythinglike equality with men. Indeed, in some ways, some groups may be moreconstrainedthan theirforebears werea hundredyearsago. 79Daniel Lerner,The Passing of Traditional Society(New York: Free Press,1958),p. 64. 80 E.G. West,Education and theIndustrialRevolution (London: B.T. Batsford, 1975),p. 249. 81 F.W. Mote,"China's Past in theStudy ofChina Today-Some Commentson theRecent Workof Richard Solomon," JournalofAsian Studies,vol. XXII, no. 1 (November 1972),p. 110. 82 Interview India Today, 31 March 1982,pp. 96-97. in 83 T.N. Krishnan, in interviewed DevelopmentForum (June 1980),p. 7. See also Poverty, Unemployment and DevelopmentPolicy. A Case Studyof SelectedIssues withReference to Kerala [1975] (Bombay: Orient Longman forDepartmentof Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, 1977),p. 5; Erik Eckholm,Down to Earth:Environment and Human Needs (London: Pluto Press,1982),pp. 41-45. Indeed,BBC-TV's "Global Report"in 1983devoteda programto thefallingbirthratein Kerala.

highest and where people break with the culture of poverty .

. [I]t's

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PacificAffairs thata highlypoliticizedpopulation can force measureofland reform a and in improvements public health,whichwill in turnreduceinfant mortality and lead to a fallingbirth rate,thusrelieving"the gripofextreme deprivation."84In the Kerala example, all this happens withouteitheran industrialor a political revolution.Literacyseems to be crucial to theprocess. Throughout theworld,forexample, high femaleliteracy usually correis and a declining birth rate.85 you take the If lated with lower fertility handbill betweenyourtoesand readit on thewayback to yourvillage,you are a different person fromsomeone who asks, "What do we do with education?" RhysIsaac, thehistorianofeighteenth-century America,contendsthat regularreadingproduced"modes ofsilentthought"and "thuswas engenis in dered'individualism.' "86 The remark particularly suggestive relation to Kerala. Malayalis are notorious in India fortheirindividualism.The of difficulty dealing with themis a national commonplace. As thelabour leader V.V. Giri told an audience in Trivandrum in 1960, "therewas a in feeling"in therestof India that"industries Kerala" faced"a day-inand day-outseriesof strikes.'"87 To make a tightconnectionbetweenliteracy, militantassertionof the is individual rights, and a strongCommunistmovement impossible. Yet, the suggestions are everywhere. Aftera detailed statisticalanalysis, for example, Donald Zagoria concludedthat"thecombinationoflandlessness and literacyis the major predictorof communist voting strength"in Leslie Brown, India.88In the 1940s,thenewlyarrivedEnglish missionary, was amazed tosee, "all overthedeck" ofa Travancoreferry boat, "working evidenceforLevi-Strauss'sassertionthat"the primary function written of of communicationis tofacilitate slavery.'"90 Today, a farhigherproportion Malayalis believe theyhave rights-and attemptto assertthem-than in the largelyilliterateKerala of thepast. This leads me to the second general point thatI wished this essay to raise: therelativeinfluenceof government activity and cultural predilection in determiningsocial or political behaviour. The Kerala example to gives us theopportunity compare theactions of threedifferent governmentsoperatingin a singleculturalregionovermorethana hundredyears.
Eckholm,Down, p. 16. an Susan H. Cochrane, "Education and Fertility: Expanded Examination of the Evidence," in Kellyand Elliott,eds., Women'sEducation, p. 329. 86 Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia,1740-90 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: of University NorthCarolina Press, 1982),p. 122. 87 The Hindu, 18 July1960,p. 9. 88 Donald S. Zagoria, "A Note on Landlessness, Literacyand AgrarianCommunism in India," Archiveseuropeennesde sociologie, vol. XIII (1972), p. 328. 89 Leslie Brown, Three Wlorlds: One Word(London: Rex Collings, 1981),p. 42. 90Claude Levi-Strauss, Triste Tropique, trans.Doreen Weightman(London: Penguin, 1976),p. 393.
84 85

class folk .

. studying the Communist Manifesto."89

Kerala offerslittle

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How WomenMade Kerala Literate it two This comparative exercise, hope, demonstrates things.First, shows I that the pre-1947patchworkof princelyand BritishIndia the potential in offersto those who would tryto explain cause-and-effect complex societies. Scholars of easternEurope have long recognizedthat the way cultures providesmorethanj usta problem. political boundariescriss-cross for It also providesan opportunity comparisons thatmay "illuminate a significanttheoreticalissue.""9 As many scholars in the 1980s incline increasinglytowards "cultural" explanations of human activity-both behaviourism often orthodoxMarxismand head-counting havingfailedto answerthequestions theyhave confronted-India's old unitsof adminisa tration they accumulated)offer fruitful (and thevastquantitiesofrecords field. Perhaps this attemptto explain literacyin Kerala illustratesthe potential of studies comparing princely states and contiguous British in the The example of literacy Kerala also suggeststheneed to modify in and emphasissometimes placed on governments institutions explaining in The notion thatgovernments social and political events modernIndia.93 ways-is initiateand people respond-often, to be sure,in unpredictable too tidyand simple. The accelerationof literacyin Kerala resultedfirst of the from exploitationofexistingculturalstrengths: relativefreedom the women and the popular, old-styleschools. Malayalis were culturally attunedto schoolingofa particular,local kindin whichgirlsparticipated. WhentheTravancoregovernment providedliteracy-oriented recognizbut able schools,personsin thosegroups in Travancorewho wereaccustomed to schooling theirchildrencontinuedto do so. In Cochin, however, where an unfamiliarsystemof English education was attemptedin the 1870s, in people avoided it. Moreover, the 1890s,abruptinnovationsin Cochin's schools led to a temporary fall in the numbersof school-goers and in to I literacy.Governments, be sure, influencedtheirsubjects,but rarely, themdown paths theywerenot alreadyinclined to go. suspect,directed An educational surveyin Gujarat in the 1970s supports the idea that withschoolingamong influential social groupsexplains accelfamiliarity eration in literacy,once governmentsbegin to spend more money on of education.The authorconcludes thatthe"tradition going in foreducaon tion" was "the singlemostpowerfulinfluence literacy rates"forall the
districts.92

91ArchieBrown,"Introduction," ArchieBrownand JackGray,eds.,Political Cultureand Political Change in CommunistStates,2nd edition(New York: Holmes and Meier,1979),p. 13. See also Gray's "Conclusion," especiallyp. 253. 92 See John R. Wood, "BritishversusPrincelyLegacies and the Political Integration of Gujarat." JournalofAsian Studies,vol. XLIV, no. 1 (November1984),pp.65-100. EdwardS. Haynes, "ComparativeIndustrialDevelopmentin 19thand 20th-Century India: AlwarState and Gurgaon District,"South Asia (New Series),vol. III, no. 2 (December 1980),pp. 25-42. 93 For example, see B.R. Tomlinson, review of D.A. Low, ed., Congress and the Raj (London: Heinemann, 1977),in Modern Asian Studies,vol. XVI, no. 2 (April 1982),p. 340.

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Pacific Affairs school For of villages in thestudy.94 planners,theestablishment a primary systemthatcarriesprestige-that attractsthe looked-up-to groups in a of program. society-seems a basic requirement a successfulliteracy In Kerala, lowercasteshad always regardedschool-goingas a markof status.Their tiny,but growing,elites began to demand opportunitiesin from 1880sin Travancore,whosegovernment the theneweducationsystem the yearsbefore First slowlybegan to concede such demandsin thetwenty World War. Meanwhile, Christian mission schools had been providing eventuanotheravenue forlow-casteeducation. The Cochin government ally followed the Travancore example, but more suddenly and disrupwhich had reacheda plateau in the 1890s figures, tively.Cochin's literacy based on high-casteand Christianschool-going,increasedsharplyfrom the 1910s as governments opened the schools to most social groups and spent increasing sums on education. Similarly,afterthe constitutional as reforms 1919,morefundswereavailable in Malabar District well. In of responseto thedemands of Malabar's people, its DistrictBoard and local of schools in the built thelargestsystem district educational entrepreneurs Madras Presidency. in is The role ofgovernments producingKerala's high levelsofliteracy unquestionable. But equally clear,it seems to me, is thefactthatgovernwas theculturalbase mentactivity alone was notenough. More important observed on which thatactivity arose. As theIndian census commissioner on in 1901,"The spreadofeducation does notdepend primarily themultiare plication ofschools,and. .. there largesectionsof thepopulation who remainignorant,howevermanyschools theremay be."95 By the 1910sand 1920sin Kerala, the question was: who was leading moreand moreMalayalis tosend whom?Was government policy tempting unable to keep up witha deep and childrento school? Or was government constantdemand to multiply the numberof schools? In 1937, Cochin's thattheeducation Dewan had littledoubt. He told his financedepartment He of budgetmuststop growing(it exceeded18percent totalexpenditure). particularlycriticizedthe practiceof citizenssettingup schools without which,ifnotconceded, government approval and laterapplyingforgrants, Though the contrastsbetween Travancore, produced dissatisfaction.96 variationsin timing, the 1920svirtually by Cochin, and Malabar illustrate had come to regardeducationas "thedoor to sectionofKerala society every "9 a new earthand a new heaven.
91Maya Shah, Ecoiomic- FactorsExplaininigValiations in LiteracyRates inl Rural Aieas: A Case .Study Guijarat of (Baroda: Departmiien Economics,Maharajah Sayajirao University, t of 1981),p. 51. 95C of I, 1901, vol. I, India, part 1, Repoit, p. 165. 16 R.K. ShanmllUkham Chettyto T.S. Narayana Iyer,Secretary, April 1937, Dewan's 14 Letters, Cochin (Kerala StateArchives, Ernakulam). 9 Report of the Unhemiiployient Trazmancore, 1928 (Trivandrum: Eniqiry Com7mittee, Government Press, 1928),p. 28.

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How WomenMade Kerala Literate The threewomen who have been so much in mythoughtssince I first with thequestion of what made Kerala literate began to wrestle probably social groups. The woman with the newspaper came fromthreedifferent on thatrainymorningnorthof Ernakulam was probablya SyrianChristian. Janamma,of course, was a Nayar. And the fisherwoman with the Hindu or lower-status handbill was eithera lower-caste Christian.Yet all read,all no doubt had been to school and all undoubtedly expectedtheir to childrenand grandchildren go to school and learn to read.Anygovernment that failed to provide the opportunitieswould do so at its peril. Kerala's culturegave womena remarkable independence, and womenhave made Kerala remarkably literate.
NOTE: THE DEFINITION OF LITERACY IN THE CENSUSES

Indian censusdata are notorious.Definitions changedfrom census one to another;categorieswere added or eliminated.Comparisons over time thus becomedifficult and dangerous. In 1931and 1941,for in example,thecensuscommissioners Travancore debated the meritsof the literacystatistics compiled in 1921. The 1931 commissionerthoughtthey werewrong-far too high. The 1941commiswereabout right.He argued thathis 1931predecessor, sionerthoughtthey who instructed to enumerators recordpeople as literateonly if theyhad fouryearsof schooling,had introduced inaccuracy applying too rigida by definition. The 1941 and 1951 censuses confirmedTravancore's and Cochin's literacy ratesas thehighestin India, and the 1951commissioner has concluded that "a verystiff interpretation been given to literacyin 1931." The debate illustrates problemswith thefigures.98 the for Except forthe 1931Travancorecensus,thecriterion beingrecorded as "literate"from1911 onwardswas theabilityto "writea simpleletter and in read theanswerto it."99Before1911,literacy thecensusdependedon the claims people made to the enumeratorand his willingness to believe them.'00This may account for the low percentagesin Travancore and Cochin in 1875: the unwillingnessof high-caste to enumerators ask lowcaste people if theywereliterate-or believe themif theysaid theywere. as Mostofthefigures thispaper areexpressed percentages thetotal in of population, including children,though sometimesliteracytables eliminate childrenundertenor fiveyearsofage. When thisis done, thepercen98C of I, 1931, vol. XXVIII, Travancore,part 1, Report,p. 281; C of I, 1941, vol. XXV. Travancore,part 1,Report,p. 154;C ofI, 1951,vol. XIII, Travancore-Cochin, part1,Report, p. 78. 99S.C. Srivastava,Indian Census in Perspective, 3rd edition (New Delhi: Officeof the RegistrarGeneral, 1983),p. 272, wherethe various criteriaare compared; C of I, 1911, vol. XVIII, Cochin, part 1, Report,p. 51. 100 K. Narayanan, Kerala. A Portrait Population (New Delhi: Census of India, 1973),pp. of 93-4.

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PacificAffairs a tage of literatesnaturallyappears higher.'0' Such variationsrepresent for further difficulty anyone using census data.'02 For mypurposes,theimportant pointsconcernnot so much theprecision ofeach individualdecade'spercentages broad trends but overtimeand different administrative areas.Treatedwithcaution, comparisonsbetween theliteracy statistics be made to tell significant can and reliable stories. La Trobe University, Australia,May 1987

101Childrenundertenin Travancoreand Cochin represented of between and 30 percent 25 the century. C ofI, 1951,vol. XIII, TravancoreSee thetotalpopulation throughout twentieth Cochin, part 1-A,Report,p. 15. 102 Narayanan,Kerala. A Portrait, pp. 93-4.

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